When I was 2 years old, my biological father left my mom, myself and my 3 other siblings. I should phrase it that my mom kicked him out of the home because he was an alcoholic and it was coming out that he was abusing myself and my two older siblings. My biological father was prone to forcing sexual activity with us 3 oldest children. There was strict evidence that the abuse started and continued to get worse because of his involvement with pornography and the fact that he too was also abused as a young child. He was to the point of raping his own children multiple times just to get his “fix”.
Now some may say that there is no way I could remember that and it shouldn’t affect me because I was so young. I beg to differ. I have extremely disturbing nightmares and have had them since childhood. I used to be terrified of the dark and of the woods, both now getting better but I KNOW this is why I have those fears. I live with anxiety at times and it is only by the grace of God that I have not committed suicide. Some can say all they want that pornography wasn’t the only thing that caused these things to happen, and you are right, it is not. But the root of the problem stems from sexual addiction which is fed by pornography. My biological father sat in Jackson Prison in Michigan for 2 years for all the horrific things he did. A restraining order was placed so he could have no contact with us kids, and he had signed over his parental rights while sitting in prison. I have never seen him since and when I was 13 years old, he committed suicide.
My story does not end here. In 2010, I married a man who I have been with since 2005. Our lives were going great until I noticed the both of us starting to disconnect. Within a few months I noticed my husband getting more violent in the bedroom, being very distant from me and emotionally abusive. One day he left his phone home from work, and with my suspicion, I started looking through his history on the internet. Sure enough, there it was. I was sick to my stomach. One of the websites was called 18 and abused. He tried to play it off that it was someone else who had his phone, but that didn’t add up until he finally admitted that yes, he did have a problem with pornography. He was addicted and that is where our road to healing began.
My husband had to receive counseling from a therapist who specializes in sexual addictions and pornography problems. The scariest thing of all was that his older brother had introduced pornography to him and used to abuse him as well, abuse that wasn’t just fondling, but straight on rape.
My husband would tell you that it is an ongoing battle. He despises pornography for what it did to him and what it was turning him into, but the urges, like any other addiction, surface at times. It changed his thinking patterns and the appetite for more and more gruesome sexual acts was growing. We are lucky it was caught and able to be nipped in the bud before he too, turned into the thing that he hated.
To say that pornography is a gate-way “drug”, so to speak, is beyond minimal. Pornography taints the soul of what sex was created to be. It demeans those involved and in turn starts to deteriorate the very being of the person involving there self with it. Pornography destroys, and will continue to do so as long as it is normalized by today’s society.
The thing that saddens me the most, is that my story is not uncommon, it is just unspoken. This is a hidden sin that will keep being hidden until we reveal it for what it truly is.
-Anna
***An alternate name has been given to the person(s) in the story.
